Only about 40 students from all over the country earned the competitive EPA honor, which provides scholarship support up to nearly $50,000 over the next two years as the recipients complete their degrees. Dreier, an environmental health science major in Baylor’s Honors Program, also will be offered a paid internship at an EPA facility next summer.

Dreier credited his professors, “whose support and guidance were essential to this accomplishment,” but those mentors deflected the praise toward the university as a whole.

“We share David’s excitement because the EPA GRO Undergraduate Fellowship represents one of the premiere research awards for undergraduate students,” said Dr. Bryan Brooks, Dreier’s honors thesis advisor. “Such an outstanding honor provides gold-standard evidence of fruit from Baylor’s commitment to undergraduate research training and integration of undergraduates in active research teams.”